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Weiward Wulf
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| | Subject: | Pain and confusion, good intentions worthless | | Time: | 12:39 pm | | Current Mood: | ![[mood icon]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/neko/kaokitty/sad.gif) sad |
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| Sometimes things fall apart when there is no reason why. Sometimes we have to draw blood. Sometimes good intentions will just make things worse for someone you care so much about. How is it that when life is so good we still hurt so much? No disease, no hunger or violence. These good times are bad.
And when this happens I have a nasty habit of turning up the squelch circuit high enough that nothing gets through. That is how I made it through some dark years in my life, but I know it's selfish. It's not fair especially to other people involved and I can't do it anymore.
My three Radiohead albums, which never get any play b/c they're so desolate sounding, have been spinning on a daily basis. All the way through. I must have listened to this song in particular about a dozen times back to back. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeowFbvpu0U
I'm sorry to write without any specifics. It has been a private matter until now. I'll start to open up about it to friends when I have an idea of where it's going. | comments: Leave a comment   |
| There have been very few musical experiences where I've just pointed and said, YES!. This is one of them.
A title jumped off the page when I was reading my program guide. Matchbox 20 on sound stage? Not the type of music that PBS plays generally. So I set the DVR and was able to watch it this week.
I haven't been able to see Matchbox live before; what a performance! Their music struck a cord with me since day one. I thought their sound came off a bit grunge-ish back in the day, on album and on radio, but there's a totally different effect in their live performance today. Innovation, even on their oldies, and some comical style in the mix. It reminds me of 3EB when they were fresh, and that is saying something.
If you can, catch this show (Saturday August 9, 10:00pm UNC-HD) or see the webpage for local listing.
And if you don't like what they do with one song, bare with it. There are gems,gems. | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| Check out this video. It is of the massive tornado that struck southern Manitoba last year. Most of my family lives in this canadian province, where even weak tornados are almost unheard of..
I found this after just learning that the tornado was upwardly revised to the F5 class. There is a moment, about 1 minute in, that would have scared the cr@p out of me!
[[ LJ uses some embed code to keep this vid in a 320x240 box. I can't change it. You might be better off following the link and see it in hi res. Definitely worth it! ]] | | comments: Leave a comment |
| | Subject: | Real world fuel efficiency | | Time: | 04:13 pm |
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| I just had another first, paying $75 to fill up my car! This is a good opportunity to post about the mileage cars really get. These are my own observations based on 3 years ownership..
Car: 2005 Nissan Altima 3.5 liter V6
Downtown driving: 21 mpg
Highway roadtrip: 33 mpg
My average: 24 (winter) / 26 (summer)
worst ever: 16, on rough dirt roads with plenty of turns
If you have stats on your car, feel free to post them. I'm always curious to know how different vehicles fare, because NADA ratings tend to be B.S. For example I once rented a compact pickup (Dodge Dakota) for two weeks, which got me a jaw dropping 12 mpg average. It is rated for 16/22 city/highway. | | comments: 13 comments or Leave a comment |
| | Tags: | obx | | Subject: | Motorcycle meets car | | Time: | 08:22 pm |
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| Photos from my latest travels are now online (two new albums, one for the OBX and one for AC). Thought I'd comment on one of the OBX pics:
This is what happens when a motorcycle intercepts a car. Incredibly, the bike came to rest about 40 feet back from our SUV in this rear-end collision. Neither vehicle was moved since the crash. Looks like the front suspension was able to store and retransmit the massive kinetic energy of impact.
The folks on the bike were taken to the hospital, but managed to come away with non-life threatening injuries. This due in large part to the use of helmets. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| I'm back from Anthrocon, and a week in the mountains of Tennessee.
AC 2008 was a blast! I'm not going to write a con report about it, but I will say it was wonderful to meet up with folks I haven't seen in too long, like ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) f0x_t0dd, foxglovefur, and wally_wolf. I wish we had more time to hang out and that's about my only regret. The Pittsburgh venue is top notch and the laser show at the dance was a real treat. I left on Sunday with about all the art show pieces I had bid on, including some very nice originals.
I had only a brief stop in Raleigh before joining my parents near lake Watauga for July 4th. The area is what I call "deep rural" (in my strange vocabulary: rural is where street signs give way to black-and-white state route posts, deep rural is where you need four wheel drive and fair weather to get near it). My family and I had arranged to meet at the end of the "last navigable road," where I could leave my car. That sounds well, but I got lost a few times because the GPS kept losing satellites. This was a real problem because there was no cellphone service there either!
The worst mistake of my trip landed me on a narrow steep dirt road with single-wides hugging close to its sides, before it descended and hugged a cliff near the lake. By the time I decided that my GPS had turned me on another wrong pass, there were no turn offs so I kept going in hope for it to join back with a better road. Well the road quickly became something that exceeded my ground clearance by no mistake or estimation. I wound up driving about a half mile in reverse up a narrow twisting steep rough dirt road with rock on one side mirror and a fall on the other.
But after I arrived my week was pretty fine. It took me out of my element, which I find refreshing at times. The fellowship of an event like AC is great, but then too is showing up to a party where you're the only one under age 50. Don't ask me to explain. I got to talk with a guy who just retired from Boeing, having worked there after retiring from the Air Force, and a state trooper who is putting in some hard work to build a still in his backyard, and a woman who used to be the head of science education for the entire state of Florida but now teaches 2nd grade with a class of 7 students in rural Tennessee and heads up charity and volunteer efforts there where poverty runs rampant.
Maybe I just get screwed down into the places and people of my life... the office, the friends, the city. A chance to climb out of all that and be there with people who come from a different vantage in life is a good experience. Keeps me grounded.
So yeah, I'm back! | | comments: Leave a comment |
| | Subject: | Good bye debt | | Time: | 08:44 pm |
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| | Today I paid off my car loan in full. Strange thing is, I don't really miss it. | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| | Subject: | It is down right refreshing outside... | | Time: | 05:05 pm |
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| | .... if you just stepped in from Hell. Another triple-digit day in Raleigh! | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| | Subject: | It's 3 AM, I must be lonely | | Time: | 03:41 am |
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| Small confession, I haven't been sleeping well lately. There is too much going on in my head I guess. And times are challenging in a way. I've put about 16 Grand into my house for repairs in the last year, projects that I can do personally (to save some $$) have been eating up most of my off hours this year so far.
My job has been relatively quiet, though I missed a promotion back in February. I'm not challenged by the work anymore. Not in a technical sense, anyway. And I've been with that company 8 years now, I've gotta wonder if I'm not delaying my career by staying on longer.
The stock market may be a cause for insomnia. It is a tough market for sure, for anyone. I've managed to keep above water and hold consistent gains. That is something. But these gains are so small, not worth the effort I've made. This fact frustrates me more than any daily loss. I decided yesterday to turn one of my brokerage accounts over to a financial manager. Now a part of the work is out of my hands.
I have thought of using the money instead to buy a second home and flip it. There are affordable properties with tons of potential out there. Whether I rented or sold them, they are properties that I would be glad to own 20 years from now. Problem is, it doesn't feel right to immerse myself in the next project. Enough with carpentry, roofs and siding. I want to get back to exercise, back to my friends especially, back to other priorities instead.
Marcello is up in Baltimore this week, with the new job he landed there. He seems so happy over the phone with the place and people there. I'm left wondering if he wouldn't be more happy living there, and wish I didn't have to wonder. I am missing him.
The house, well. It is still a bit of a project space but I'm winding it down. Have to re-install the guest bath's shower fixtures and wash the place up.
So..... I don't know. There is so much going well and so much to be thankful for, I know it, then why am I staring wide-eyed at the ceiling at 3 AM? | | comments: 7 comments or Leave a comment |
| | Subject: | Looking for new employment | | Time: | 02:41 pm |
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| If anyone knows of a job opening for a software engineer, please contact me.
My primary skill is in C and C++ development, Realtime embedded systems, relational databases and SQL, Perl, Bash, and moderate proficiency in SS7 protocol. I have worked in the finance and telecommunications industries with 8 years experience.
Specializations include: realtime database development, linux application development, requirements engineering, project management, distributed alarm subsystems, in-service upgrades, high availability and process management. I am currently functioning as a feature lead with two direct reports and an active development role.
And yes I am officially on the market for a new job. | | comments: 3 comments or Leave a comment |
| | Subject: | Opportunity and Risk, inseperable twins | | Time: | 09:49 pm |
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| Live long enough and you will find yourself on the other side of any given life situation, with nothing more than a faint smile to say, "I know."
I'm not talking right now of any personal matter. This is professional. The state of our economy is revealing so much, changing so much that we take for granted. As a college student I had a front row seat for the roaring 90's and the tech crash of 2000. I had no money then but I kept close watch. I'm left wondering now if my understanding of business is enough for me to successfully navigate this time.
Two companies are on my mind, one is an excellent performer, the other's bleeding hard, the two are linked by a majority ownership. Whether for profit or a lesson, I am going in on this with a significant investment. The only certain thing is that I'll be proven right or wrong, there is no in between. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| | Tags: | life, work | | Subject: | Steady busy | | Time: | 09:14 am |
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| I was named Feature Engineer on EPAP11/Eagle39, which is great, but my time basically evaporated into the backdrop of a busy project schedule. Hopefully we'll soon clear our initial tasks and things will loosen up. There are friends I need to get up with.
One piece of good news, we finally got a contractor!! He seems technically proficient but man is he proactive in asking for help. That quality is both good and bad. I mean, you don't want to sit there staring blankly at a screen when a question or two would get you going, but we just do not have time right now to host so many learning sessions.
This is a case of..... step in the door, congratulations!, you're already several staff weeks behind so get the hell started!!
We are developing a number substitution feature for international customers. This enables calling and called party number substitution. It is a pretty flexible feature, here is just one example of use: My chiropractor drives me nuts because they have multiple lines to their office. Their main [public] number is stored in my phone, but they call out appointment reminders from other lines. This gives me a local number I don't recognize. With NS, you can substitute on calling party to a public number and ,well, problem solved. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| | Subject: | Be cool, live longer | | Time: | 09:54 pm | | Current Mood: | Mending |
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| My fever finally broke today, after topping at 102.5 (a five degree fever for me) it came back to my normal 97.6. We can say this was definitely the flu.
It got me thinking about why my normal body temp is so low. I did some reading and found a study that links low normal temperature to longevity. Apparently, mice with low body temperatures lived an average of 12% longer than their normal temperature peers in one study.
That is all well. If others in my generation are living to ninety, I fully expect to be kicking strong at one hundred, which is a 12% deviation. At age 30, it still means I am already passed quarter-life. Scary, eh? And I'm younger than some of the codgers on my friends list! | | comments: Leave a comment |
| | Subject: | Under the weather [again] | | Time: | 08:48 am | | Current Mood: | ![[mood icon]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/neko/kaokitty/sick.gif) sick |
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| Well I don't know how I managed it, but after being over my shingles for one week I caught something new. Started out like a nasty cold but I suspect now it's the flu.
My symptoms aren't as bad as a full bout of flu, thank God, but then again I did get a flu shot last October. They do wear off to partial protection late in the season. I've been running a 3+ degree fever for the past few days, not sleeping and generally feeling like crud.
On the up side, I managed to save my PTO days by working at home. Definitely looking forward to being back on my feet, and back to hanging out with friends which I really need to do more often. And NOT GETTING SICK UNTIL SUMMER, because this month's combo of cold, shingles, flu has royally sucked. | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| | Subject: | Blink! Did you catch it? | | Time: | 12:26 pm |
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| There has been an enormous paradigm shift in the public conscious that happened without so much as a sound.
The trickle down theory of reaganomics, which sprung up as an assumption in nearly all public economic discourse, has turned a complete 180. Now we talk of stimulus as tax rebates to the masses, even put income caps on who can receive this money. Republican congressman say in interviews, "it doesn't make sense to give me six hundred dollars; I wouldn't spend it."
What "everybody knows" has changed. It is the consumer, especially folks living paycheck to paycheck, who is going to power us out of this slump. We are hanging on their incentive to trickle money UP through our system.
And nobody seems to have noticed. Odd, eh? I'm not coming down on either side of this issue, it just fascinates me how powerful an influence societal mentality has on individual perception, how very unnoticed and often so blind. It is a thin veil that wraps our minds in a backdrop, making a wide world seem small enough for us to grasp. | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| | Tags: | birthday, sick | | Subject: | 30 years as of today | | Time: | 05:19 pm | | Current Mood: | not so great |
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| Well it is hard to believe I turn 30 today. No celebration this time, though. I'm not up to it. The office has been busy, this week especially, as we try to hammer out the last of our design. Our feature lead is nine months pregnant and Monday is her due date.
On top of that, I guess by the stress I've been under, I caught sick this weekend. Doc says it may be shingles; my family has a particular vulnerability for it so I'm going with that diagnosis. My sister had shingles just last year before her wedding.
I'm hoping too feel better soon so I can get back into gear. | | comments: 7 comments or Leave a comment |
| This post is mostly for myself so I have a record, but you're welcome to read on.
"He who begins too much accomplishes little."
I am taking this advice to heart by drafting a list of necessary activities. These are things that I must fit into every week or I'll feel unbalanced. A pure distillate, nothing can be taken out. They are (in no order):
1. Exercise
2. My relationship
3. Friends
4. Investment
5. Chores
6. Meditation
7. Cats, turtle... "family" time
8. My Job
9. Self Study program
10 Self time, recreational reading
11 Calm nonstructured time (lazy mornings, just plain living)
12 Online time to respond on emails and journal writing
13 Planned outings (Volunteer, travel, Cons, movies)
It is surprising how much there is to pack into a week! Take one day away for number 13 and you must hit two items each evening and still revisit no item twice in a week (of course it is not that simple but you get the idea). No wonder I constantly feel like I'm chasing after my time. Like blotting a day or two off the calendar for some event sets everything on its head.
I've always had this idea that I need to get better at time management, or at least at prioritization. This list makes me feel a bit better about the solutions I've worked out. There is no perfect answer, there is too much to life for the time I am given. | | comments: Leave a comment |
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Weiward Wulf
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